Would you believe...?

Hi there.  Well, so much for my amazing 30 day challenge.  I fell off the wagon and into a bottle of wine.  LOL  It would appear that I can only last 2 weeks maximum on any "challenge" now.  I'm not happy about it, but on the good-job-Holly side of things I only had 1 piece of pizza this whole month! Which, if you know me, is quite an accomplishment. *pats self on back*

My Pacer app mocks me daily with helpful little comments like, "You haven't logged your weight in awhile" and "You really need to get your fat-ass to the gym".  Okay, so the second one isn't true, but it feels true...  Stupid app.

In an effort to collect swag from all the gyms in Southern California I signed up for yet another one last night.  Planet Fitness.  I get a t-shirt for signing up. Daniel wants to get back into shape so we're going to start going to the gym together.  If he's not into it, then I don't get into it.  It's hard to stay motivated alone.  #truth  It is for me anyway.

That's all I got for now.  We did install baseboards in our bedroom finally.  We haven't had baseboards since we put in the new flooring, 11 years ago...  And you wouldn't think they'd make a big difference but they do!  I love them and I wonder why we didn't do them years ago.  Better late than never, right?

Hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving and have a great week!

♥ Holly ♥

***UPDATE*** (5 hours later)
I've been thinking about this post and realized that I took a very flippant attitude about giving up on my goals.  I don't like it.  I'm actually quite disappointed in myself.  I'm sitting here thinking about how terrible my skin is right now, how overweight I've allowed myself to become and it's got me down.  My only hope is that I can start again (going to the gym tonight will help) and give it another go.  Back on the aforementioned wagon! 

Howdy!

I have no idea why the cowboy theme, okay?  Why do I do anything? 

We had a very productive weekend.  I put the hubby to work, big time.  He painted our mantel, spray painted our back door which was gross, the list goes on.  All because we got a new TV.  Ours was 10 years old and the sound was finally starting to go out on us.  It was time.  Costco had a great one on sale and they also had this great TV stand on sale...  So of course we had to get both.  Which meant, taking the old TV off the wall and patching holes from the TV hanger thingy.  Then we starting moving art and discovering more holes to patch... 

So what started off as just replacing our TV turned into a whole thing.  Anyway, the living room needed it and it's done now (for now).  We can move on to the next thing which will be our bedroom.  We actually started on stuff in there too, come to think of it.  Got rid of our giant armoire, moved our hope chest which was at the foot of our bed, moved my dresser into the armoire's spot, etc, etc.  AND now that I'm thinking about it, we also moved 3 bookshelves into our office/kids playroom and created a little library.  Wow!  We did more than I originally remembered! And all between 2 soccer games and an end of season soccer party.

I've got bruises all over my legs from moving furniture and bumping into all sorts of junk that was displaced in all the hubub and my whole body aches from heavy lifting.  Good workout for sure.  Here are a few pictures.  Was too busy to take a bunch but I will tonight.

Patching holes in the drywall

Mantel, before.

 I don't think I've ever mentioned it before but Daniel and I did the stonework on the fireplace surround ourselves when we moved in.  This was before the days of those handy pre-fab stone tiles, etc.  We actually went to The Rockery and picked out each stone, cut them down, made a frame to hold them up, stacked and attached them.  It was a pain in the butt but now we feel that much more pride about it since we did it the old fashioned way. ;)   Anyway, here is after the paint job we did this weekend:


It's a really dark brown color.  It came out a little darker than I anticipated but we love it.  

Anyhoo, I hope y'all had a great weekend (back to cowboy speak for some reason) and have a wonderful week!

♥ Holly ♥

Hola my peeps!

Well, it's Day 11 and while I haven't been as strict this week as I'd hoped, I am still down in weight.  To date, since the 1st, I'm down 6 lbs.  I'd say that's progress!  I took some pics this morning and I don't know that I see a difference yet but at least I'm heading in the right direction.  Still haven't had a drop of alcohol. Yay!  So here's this morning's picture and the 1st picture I took below it:

139.4 lbs

146.8 lbs

I've been drinking a ton of water and have reached my goal of 10k steps or more 8 out of 10 days.  The last two days I've gone above and beyond with 15k and 16k steps each!  That's what happens when you have nothing to do at an hour and a half long soccer practice. 

I really want to add more exercise besides just walking but it's really hard to get motivated.  This weekend our goal is to DE-clutter the house and turn in our cans/bottles.  Should keep me moving at least.  Perhaps I can move our free weights to a new spot in the house.  That counts, right??  LOL

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!  And THANK YOU to all our veterans!!! ♥

Love love love,
Holly 

Happy Monday!

Said no one, ever.  Haha jk jk.  I love the time change.  I had no trouble getting up early to work out a little this morning and go on a long walk with the dogs.

Before I get to my weekend art project I'll just tell you that I was good this weekend, diet-wise except for 2 meals.  We went out to Shogun for dinner Saturday night but I tried to order as healthy as possible.  I got the steamed white rice, had veggies, the clear onion soup and teriyaki steak.

Yesterday Daniel made his white/black bean chicken chili and I had a small bowl for dinner with a dollop of plain Greek yogurt in it.  Not terrible but definitely not Whole 30 compliant.  But you know I told you that I'm not going to be as strict this time around.  I think I'd go crazy and not be able to stick to this "challenge" at all.  The whole point is to break my bad habits after all and adopt healthier ones.  And I'm doing that.  Still not a drop of alcohol for the month too!  Woohoo! Also, I was 140.0 this morning so that alone is amazing for me.  I mean to end the weekend weighing less than I started it.

Anyway, now on to my art project.  We've had these large canvas' that we bought at a super fancy art sale... at Albertson's, soon after we moved into the house.

There are 2 huge insets above the stairs that need something to go in them.  And while there's nothing wrong with the 2 paintings, the house has evolved since buying them 10 years ago and I wanted something more modern.  I was inspired looking at DIY abstract art on Pinterest and while I am no artist, the tutorials I saw made it seem pretty simple.  Just slap some colors you like on a canvas.  How hard could it be?  

Really, not very!  I was pleasantly surprised.  I acquired some fabric from my work which is usually used for cross stitching but it totally worked as canvas in this case.  


I had Daniel help me pull it tight over the old artwork and used a staple gun to keep it in place.  Voila!  Instant canvas.  We had recently gotten a set of acrylic paints from Walmart for a school volcano project so we had it on hand.  I picked out the colors I liked and got to work slapping it on the canvas. 

I didn't end up using all the colors and went and grabbed some others along the way.  

I just dribbled the paint on and used a brush to sweep it across the fabric.  Then I kept layering on other colors with no specific idea of what I was trying to accomplish. LOL



I was not sure at this point.  It didn't look like the tutorials I'd seen and I wasn't in love with how it was coming out.  So I just kept adding paint until I basically ran out.  Ending up with this:


And you know what?  I love it!  I need to get more paint and then I can tackle the other one.  I hope it turns out half as good (beauty is in the eye of the beholder, remember) as this one.  If it doesn't, guess what?  There's plenty more fabric and paint where that came from so I can start over.


Not too shabby for basically free art, eh?  Someday when we repaint the inside of the house, we want to paint a darker color inside the boxes so then the art will really pop.

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend as well!  Happy arting! ;)

Peace!

♥ Holly ♥

Happy Friday!

I'm exhausted.  I need to get used to having a baby in the house again.  Not a human baby of course but our new 6 month old mutt of a rescue, Candy.  She's very hyper and like any baby, gets up several times a night.  Last night it was probably 3 times.  Once to go potty (she's pretty good about this which is nice) and 2 other times to give me a bath. LOL  I don't mind getting up but it's hard to get her to settle back down.  She'll get the gist.  Hopefully (insert bewildered looking emoticon here).  Here's a picture:



In other news, it is Friday so here is my challenge recap.  I started at 146.something at the beginning of this week and today I'm down to 142.2!  Woohoo!  Progress.  I'm basically sticking to the Whole 30 rules except I have put a splash of 1% milk in my one cup of coffee a day.  No added sugar though.   I'm also drinking 2 cups of green tea in the morning at work which isn't allowed on Whole 30 either.  But no breads, grains, or sugar.  And no alcohol!  It's undoubtedly difficult having 20lbs of candy in the house from Halloween but I have stayed strong. Yay me!  I've also reached 10k steps each day, so another goal reached (so far). 

If all continues as it should then I'll probably post a side by side pic next Friday.  Hopefully I'll be down another 5lbs or so. :)

Have a great weekend!

♥ Holly ♥

P.S. If you're interested to know, I've been eating an egg casserole thing in the mornings with turkey sausage, spinach, mushrooms, onions and a little bit of grated red potato.  It's delicious.  And am basically living off of rotisserie chicken and veggies for lunch and dinner with some fruit for snacks.  Tonight we're having Filet Mignon with asparagus for dinner.  Yum. ♥  I'm going to go shopping and get some shrimp and fish to mix things up too.

Hi there!

Halloween has come and gone and I only ate 2 Almond Joy's last night.  To tell you the truth, I've just about OD'd on candy and wine lately so I am really ready for this month.  I'm basically making this "challenge" up as I go but here are the main ideas: 

• No Alcohol

• Eat Clean (as much as possible but I'm not getting crazy here)

• Try for 10,000 steps a day

Easy, right?  Well I'm going to give it the old college try.  I really feel like just breaking my habits of gorging on pizza, various junk and getting my fill of wine will help immensely.  Like I said, it's a vicious cycle. 

I weighed in at 146.8lbs this morning.  Now for the moment you voyeurs  have all been waiting for, the "before" pictures.

I had to take them myself because Daniel left for work early and I'm pretty sure he's over my "challenges". LOL  I hope to prove him wrong and really make good progress this month and adopt healthy habits.  I have to try!

My plan is to check in on Friday's with pictures, weigh-ins and general thoughts.  Also, if you're on Snapchat I'll be posting some things on there as well.  Follow me at: athollywood24

Wish me luck!
♥ Holly ♥

Hi guys,
     I need to do something.  Let me just take you back to when I did my 90 day Visalus challenge:  In 3 months I lost about 11 lbs.  I started around 139lbs and got all the way down to 129lbs for a couple of days...  It's funny when you reach your goals or a goal how easy it is (at least it was for me) to just stop all the good things you were doing to get there and back slide, isn't it?  Well, let me tell you, I back-slid. Hard...

This morning I am weighing in at 145lbs.  145!!!  After our river trip last week I had gotten all the way up to 150lbs.  Gah!  Now, maybe that doesn't sound like a terrible number to some people but for 5 foot 4 inch me, it's, well it's the biggest I've ever been when not pregnant or having just had a baby.  According to the BMI scale (which I will say has some flaws) I'm borderline obese at this point.  When Daniel and I were dating (just after high school for me) I fluctuated around the mid to high 120's.  I wasn't working out, I wasn't eating healthy at the time but I wasn't drinking that much either.  That's just being young and not having had kids.  I get that.  I know my body won't ever be the same as that, life happens.  There are a lot of different factors.  Right now, I eat terribly and I'm not going to lie, I like to drink.  There, I said it.  #TRUTH  It's a vicious cycle.  Drink too much, then binge eat because my inhibitors are gone.

I don't like it. 

Don't get me wrong, I'm generally very happy.  I love my husband, my kids, my dogs, my house, etc.  I just need to start developing healthy habits to feel better about my body.  So I want to do another 30 day challenge for myself.  Like the Whole 30 but maybe not as strict.  It's pretty strict.  Part of my self-imposed challenge will be no drinking for the entire month of November (starting today with the not drinking though).  Thanksgiving shouldn't be a problem food-wise because it's going to be a very small group of us this year.  I'm toying with the idea of just getting a couple of rotisserie chickens and some veggies...  We'll see.

I was inspired by (besides feeling like crap) a blog I saw on Pinterest.  It's called 100 Healthy Days.  Her before/after picture spoke to me because I thought she looked about like what I look like now.  It helps when I see other people's realistic transformations.  My friend Britteny recently had a wonderful transformation as well which also really inspired me.  She lost a few sizes and became a personal trainer, so awesome! 

Anyway, this blog helped me when I did my other challenges to stay accountable so unfortunately for y'all that means I will be posting pictures of my fat-ass. LOL  Pictures to follow.  I hope you will all support me and send your positive vibes my way!

Love,
Holly

Howdy!

So back on the post titled 6 Months Later I posted "before" pictures of my bathroom if you wanna check them out again.  And here are some poorly lighted recent pictures!  These are after paint, baseboards, curtains and wall art.

Is that off-center rug driving you nuts too? LOL

 I got the pair of curtains at Fallas for like $5 and bonus they were long enough to cut off a bunch, hem and make a nifty valance for the window next to the shower.  I love it when a plan comes together!  Sewing cred to my awesome mother-in-law, she seriously rocks.  She does these little projects for me when she's watching the boys at our house.  How cool is that?!  And she makes them clean their rooms. LOL



Clearly, they're not light blocking curtains but I didn't need them to be.  They're merely decorative.
I LOVE the color I painted it too.  Very serene.  It's from Home Depot and it was an accent color I found on one of their idea cards in with the Behr paint selections.  I spray painted that palm tree wall sconce (above pic) from black to silver.  I think it goes much better with the other colors in here.


Baseboards, which Daniel surprised me with when I got back from one of my bachelorette parties last year. Score!  It was such a cheap and easy makeover, it's criminal how long it took to finish and post about.  

As is so often the case, I forgot to take "before" pictures of my dining room chairs but they were covered with the same fabric I used for the coffee table turned ottoman which has yet to be re-covered.  This ottoman pic gives you some idea of how nasty the fabric got.

YUCK.

 Once again, my MIL came through with some fabric that was donated to her to make dog beds (which she in turn donates to local shelters).  She thought this was too nice to use for that though so I scored again.


Much better and more practical if you ask me.  It's kind of shiny too so stuff rolls off of it easier than the cotton fabric I used before.  

Yet another free project.  Gotta love it. 

That's all for now, folks!
♥ Holly ♥

I've always heard from my friends that Fitbit's are addictive.  I did not believe that one little bit.

Recently, however, I downloaded a pedometer (step counter) app called Pacer.  It got 5 stars where the Fitbit app only got 3 1/2.  I have an iPhone 6 if you're wondering.  Anyway, I'm on day 3 of having this app and guess what...  I'M ADDICTED!!! Go figure.  Each day since downloading it I've reached or exceeded 10,000 steps per day and am on pace for that again today.  Now my phone is attached to me though which is the only drawback.  Having a nice little Fitbit on my wrist would be a little easier but oh well, this is FREE. And we all know I'm all about free. ;)  I'm going to attempt to make myself an armband to hold it in.  That would really help. 

Daniel is loving it because now he makes me go get things for him. "You need to get your steps in," he coaxes and damn it if it doesn't work! Hahaha

Sadly, this is about the extent of my excitement lately.  The boys have soccer practice or games ALL.THE.TIME. so I basically have no life.  Not that I had much of one before, ha!  I'm going to try to start blogging more because it's therapeutic for me and I keep getting notices of new views on my blog's Facebook page. I figure if people are checking it out while I'm not blogging (it's been 3 months) then just imagine if I did it steadily!

No new projects recently and haven't really finished any old ones either.  It's been a long, hot and therefore rough summer and I just can't find any motivation.  Hopefully once the weather cools down I'll get back on it.  Oh! I did recover my dining room chairs come to think of it.  I'll post pics later.  And someday pictures of my master bathroom makeover. Gah! I'm so bad.

Anyway, that's all for now.  In the meantime I found my doppelganger on a website for a local winery, see!  LOL Crazy.

Byeeeee!!! 
♥ Holly ♥

Hi there!

I just thought I'd check in and say "Hi".  I've been so bad about blogging lately but I received a comment notification in my email over the weekend so it reminded me to get my butt back on here. 

What I love about a blog is that they show you where your traffic comes from.  It turns out that I've had page views from places like Australia and Saudi Arabia!  I don't know about you, but I find that kind of exciting.  But I'm also easily excited. LOL  I happen to love that about me. ;) 

Since April I've been going to a great bootcamp-style gym.  It really keeps me motivated.  The instructors are so nice too, I love it there.  Unfortunately about a week or so ago I did something to my right foot.  The ball of my foot was swollen and it hurt to put any pressure on it.    It's still hurting and after some research I've diagnosed myself as having a stress fracture.  Which is basically a hairline fracture in one of my foot bones.  Here's a handy diagram I found:

It really bites the big one.  I had to freeze my membership for all of July.  I know I should probably go to the doctor but I'm cheap.  No matter what is wrong with my foot, the only real treatment is rest, ice, compression and elevation.  So that's what I'm doing.  These injuries take 6 to 8 weeks to heal. :(  Pray for a swift recover please!

Peace!
♥ Holly ♥

What? It's only been 6 months since my last post...  Okay, yeah it's been awhile.  Mostly it's because I became the only person in my office at work and got super busy.  And also I'm lazy.

I actually got a case of social media overload too.  I've recently deleted Facebook from my phone which has helped me be more present at home (sad to say).  Sad that I wasn't more present before not that I have to be present now. LOL  Anyway, I recommend it.  Positive change, personal growth, yay!  Daniel (hubby) was very shocked and excited that I deleted Candy Crush also. 

Last progress blog post (titled "6 Months Later..." fitting) I was writing about my Master Bath improvements and posted some "before" pics.  I will take pictures tonight, I promise!  We painted, did our baseboards, and hung curtains and a valance.  There are 2 pieces of art I still need to hang but you'll get the idea.  ;)  I love it.  Didn't spend a ton of money either which is a nice bonus.

Still have yet to do our kitchen backsplash and recently started landscaping our front yard which has been a dirt lot for the past few months.  To say we have project A.D.D. is an understatement. Haha

Here's a "before" pic of the yard back in all it's grassy glory *sigh*:


And here is the current state:


 It's hard to tell from the pictures but there were Hydrangeas in front of the porch but they kept getting scorched to death.  So we pulled those out awhile ago and put 3 rose bushes in instead.  Which yield these beauties:


Anyhoo, that is basically what's been going on with us.  I'll post again sooner rather than later next time.

Ta-ta for now!
♥ Holly ♥